The thin bent man put questions to Tatzel. She answered in icy tones and again gestured toward the wagon.
"Yes, yes," the men seemed to say. "All in good time. But first things first! Great good fortune has brought the three of us together and we must celebrate our luck in proper style. A pity only that there are not two of you!"
Tatzel stumbled back another pace and looked desperately around the landscape. Aillas thought sardonically: ‘Now she wonders why I do not rush forward to teach the ruffians a lesson.'
The burly bearded man leaned forward and seized Tatzel around the waist. He drew her close, and tried to kiss her. Tatzel twisted her head this way and that, but presently he found her mouth. The lean man tapped him on the shoulder and the two exchanged words, and the younger man sullenly drew back, either by reason of fear or by difference in status.
The older man spoke gently but with effect, and the younger man gave a shrugging acquiescence. Together they prepared for a game, to determine who first would amuse himself with Tatzel. The younger man pushed a stick into the ground, and drew a line in the dirt at a distance of ten feet. Taking coins from their pouches, they stood behind the line and in turn tossed coins toward the stick. The boy, jumping down from the wagon, came to watch with what seemed a more than casual interest.
While their attention was distracted, Aillas ran behind the wagon. In front of the hut there was argument as to a possible breach of the rules, and the boy was called on as an arbiter. He rendered a decision, and the game was played once again to the amended rules, though not without grumbling and the exchange of heated words between the two. Tatzel at the same time made furious expostulations, until she was commanded to silence, whereupon she stood back and watched with mouth drawn into a grimace.
During these events Aillas moved quietly to the horses and availed himself of a bow and a handful of arrows.
The game ended; the victor was the burly black-bearded man who laughed proudly and congratulated Tatzel on her luck. Once again he seized her and, with a leer and a wink toward his comrade, took her into the hut.
The older man gave a dreary shrug, and growled an order to the boy, who ran off to the wagon and brought back a wallowing leather sack of wine. The two went to squat in the sunlight at the side of the hut.
Aillas quietly approached, arrow nocked to the string. He sidled to the doorway and, softly as a shadow, stepped inside. Tatzel lay sprawled naked on the grass bed. The bandit had dropped his breeches and kneeling at the ready groped to insert his monumental genital member. Tatzel saw the still silhouette in the doorway and gasped; the bandit looked over his shoulder. He uttered an inarticulate curse and clambered to his feet, groping for his sword. He opened his mouth, to call out his rage; Aillas loosed the arrow. It hissed across the room, entered the open mouth, to pin the head to a post in the back wall, where the man died in dancing spasms of arms and legs.
Aillas returned outside as quietly as he had entered. Stepping around the corner, he found the older man leaning back with the wine-sack tilted high, while the boy watched in fascinated envy. The boy's eyes, looking past the wine-sack, focused upon Aillas; he gave a strangled falsetto call. The bandit, rolling his pale gray eyes to the side, saw Aillas. He dropped the bag and scrambled to his feet, snatching at his sword. His face somber and grave, Aillas loosed his arrow. The bandit's knees buckled; he clawed briefly at the shaft protruding from his chest, then sagged to the ground.
Aillas went to look for the boy, and discovered him fleeing in great bounds and leaps down the road the way he had come, and a moment later he was gone from sight.
Aillas looked into the hut. Tatzel with eyes pensively downcast, was dressing herself, back turned to the corpse. Aillas, also thoughtful, went to the wagon, which was covered by a tarpaulin of good waxed linen canvas. Below were a variety of provisions, in large quantity, sufficient to feed a dozen men for a month or more.
Aillas chose goods from the wagon: a sack of meal, two flitches of bacon, salt, two round cheeses, a sack of wine, a ham, a goodly bundle of onions, a crock of preserved goose, a rack of salt fish, a bag of raisins and dried apricots. He packed the supplies in the tarpaulin and loaded it upon the best of the draught horses, which now would carry the pack.
Tatzel came to sit in the doorway of the hut, where she demurely combed the short curling locks of her hair. Aillas remembered the crutch he had contrived for her use. After the briefest of hesitations, he went to get it, along with the trout he had speared. The crutch he gave to Tatzel. "This may help you to walk."
Aillas entered the hut, took up the two cloaks, shook them out, and gave a final glance to the corpse. The next person to enter the hut would discover a sight to startle him.
Returning into the wholesome outer air, Aillas said: "Come! Before long this place will be swarming with Ska, depending on how far the boy must run with his news."
Tatzel pointed up the trail. "Someone is coming now; best that you flee while you can save yourself."
Turning to look, Aillas discovered an old man approaching with four goats. He wore garments of bast, straw sandals and a low wide-brimmed hat of woven straw. Each of his goats carried a small pack. As he drew abreast of the hut, he turned an incurious glance from Aillas to Tatzel and would have passed without a word, had not Aillas called out: "Hold a moment, if you will."
The old man halted, politely but without enthusiasm.
Aillas said: "I am strange to these parts; perhaps you can direct me."
"I will do my best, sir."
Aillas pointed down the valley. "Where does the road lead?"
"It is ten miles down to Glostra, which is a village and a Ska outpost, where they keep a goodly barracks."
"And up the road?"
"There are several turnings. If one keeps to the main trail he comes to the High Moor, and there he will find the Windy Way to Poelitetz."
Aillas nodded; this was more or less what he had expected. He signalled to the old man. "Come with me, and tie your goats to the wagon, if you like."
The old man dubiously followed Aillas to the hut. Here Aillas showed him the two corpses. "They came up the road with the wagon. They attacked me and I killed them. Who are they?"
"In the hut with the beard: he is a half-breed Ska. The other is known as Fedrik the Snake. Both were bandits in the service of Torqual, or so it is said."
"Torqual. ... I have heard the name."
"He is chief of the bandits, and his lair is Castle Ang, where he cannot be attacked."
"Much depends upon who is attacking, and how," said Aillas. "Where is the fort, so that we may avoid it?"
"Fifteen miles along the trail you will discover three pines by the road, with a ram's skull nailed to each. Here the road forks. The way to the right leads to Ang. I have seen it once only, and the entry was guarded by two knights in full armour impaled on stakes. I will go there never again."
"I see that the second of your goats carries a good iron pannikin," said Aillas. "Will you trade this pannikin for a horse, a wagon and a supply of victual as to keep you fat for a year?"
"The trade would seem to be fair, from my point of view," said the old man cautiously. "These articles are naturally yours to bestow."
"I have claimed them and no one disputes me. However, should we make the trade, I suggest that you take the goods as quickly as possible to some secret place, if for no other reason than to forestall envy."
"That is wise counsel," agreed the old man. "I hereby effect the trade."
"Further, you have never seen us and we have never seen you."
"Precisely so. At this moment I hear only the echo of ghost-voices carried on the wind."